Water quality measurement and its continuous monitoring is an important facet of many fields of science, including environmental protection and stewardship, biology and industrial hygiene. Society continues to benefit from innovations in chemical synthesis, but each newly developed chemical species has the potential to introduce water contamination. A prime example of this trend is that of the widespread use of otherwise highly desirable pharmaceuticals and personal care product (collectively, PPCPs) chemicals which are now also recognized as widespread water contaminants.
The accumulation of PPCPs as contaminants in environmental systems has become a major concern as usage of such chemicals continues to increase. Characterization of these chemicals in environmental samples represents a daunting task due to the breadth of different chemicals this encompasses, the diversity of sample matrices that are of interest (e.g. water, sludge, soil) and the multitude of routes of entry into the environment. For example, unused medications are often discarded improperly. Additionally, pharmaceuticals frequently undergo an incomplete metabolism in the human body, leaving the remainder to be naturally excreted and enter municipal wastewater systems. Also, the average person uses several consumer products related to hygiene daily, and these chemicals are rinsed away during bathing and enter wastewater systems in this way.
Conventional water treatment systems are efficient at removing most contaminants, but they are not designed or capable of removing all PPCPs, so these compounds and their degradation products regularly enter potable water supplies. While troubling targeted assessments have been reported, little is known regarding the ultimate environmental fate and potential risks of this class of chemicals. The ever-changing and persistent nature of this problem demonstrates that there is a real and immediate need for rapid, accurate monitoring of PPCP dispersion into water supplies and surrounding ecosystems so that proper remediation can be undertaken.
Aqueous environmental sample analysis is commonly done with mass spectrometry (MS) coupled with gas or liquid chromatographic separation, commonly employing high resolution or tandem MS analysis respectively referred to as GC-MS and LC-MC. Such hyphenated MS techniques are well regarded for their performance, particularly for their high quantitative analysis ability. But, while GC-MS and LC-MC offer many benefits, these techniques often require multiple instrumental methods to cover a broad range of analytes, suffer from long analysis times, and call for extensive sample preparation, making them not only time-consuming but also expensive.
Therefore, if a method of aqueous environmental sample analysis with high quantitative analysis ability that also covers a broad range of analytes, requires only short analysis times, and does not call for extensive sample preparation, an important advance in the art would be at hand. The present invention in its various embodiments provides such an advance.